He wanted to become a soldier, signing up for World War II at Flinders Street station in Melbourne.

He lied about his age, telling them he was nineteen and gave them a false surname, changing it from Foote to Ford.

He became a member of the second twenty first infantry battalion, eighth platoon, training near Albury where he had his seventeenth birthday.

In March 1941 they boarded the old steam engine Ghan in Adelaide, the train filled to the brim with young soldiers.

"There were fellows sleeping up in the luggage racks, on the floor, on the seats, out in the passage.

"People everywhere, over a thousand people. The whole platoon" he laughs.

Arriving in Alice Springs, all the soldiers were told to disembark from the train.

Unable to go further as the tail end of the wet season had rained out the track further north, they had to camp out in Alice Springs for a while.

A number of them got diarrhoea while waiting. Pop reckons it was the flies.

"The flies dear, I've never seen anything like it.

"We had to get a fly net and put it over our dixie (plate) to be able to eat without eating flies and all."

Quarantined from the other soldiers, all the ones suffering were only given sago and tea to imbibe, no sugar, no milk for every meal.

"It tasted terrible but it certainly bound you up."

Eventually well enough and able to proceed to Darwin, the Battalion made their way overland to Birdum to meet another old steam engine train.

This time they were transported in a cattle carriage.

No seats, just hay over the floor of the carriage and an old roof, the sides open to the elements as they slowly chugged north.

Covered in grit, smoke and dirt from the old steam engine, there was a point when the old train's couplings broke apart and the soldiers felt their carriage start to slowly roll back for a couple of miles.

Waiting in the heat, the train eventually came back to pick them up.

Finally arriving in Darwin, the young soldiers were sent to their base camp in Winnellie.

Rows of tents greeted them as they were put to work to get the rest of the camp infrastructure set up.

Humid and hot, mosquitoes buzzing, my grandfather remembers meeting some of the wildlife.

"At the top end of each line of tents was a pee area.

"So you'd be doing your thing and next thing you'd look around and you'd have one of these big goanna's crawling towards you.

"You'd have to cut your business short and get out of the way. They were really big."

With a number of Australian battalions staged in Darwin, there used to be a bit of trouble when the men got out on the town for leave.

"I remember the swinging, bat wing doors of the old Don hotel" he says.

"You had the Watch swinging in and out of those doors all the time or someone would come rushing out or be belted out of those doors.

"Used to be like an old Western movie."

He also recalls a number of fights at the Vic Hotel with drunken soldiers causing trouble all over town.

"It was pretty rough at the time.

"I remember one time we were in a cafe and this big strapping army bloke came in and very full he was.

"He looked at us, there were three of us sitting there together and he said; righto, which one of you three are going to take me on?

"The owner of the cafe called the police, but the police had a lot of trouble getting him out the door.

With so many soldiers in Darwin working away in their camps, the time began to lag. Some would complain about not going anywhere, frustrated to see action.

But with the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbour on the 7th December 1941, things changed and the soldiers were mobilised.

My grandfather was sent off to Ambon, Indonesia in a cattle boat, part of the 1131 strong Gull Force.

Met with over 20, 000 Japanese troops, Gull Force were either killed in action or taken Prisoner of War by the Japanese soldiers.

Racked with malaria, along with 267 others my grandfather was taken by ship to a convalescence camp on the southern Chinese Island of Hainan for the next three years and eight months as a P.O.W.

"It wasn't a convalescence camp I can tell you. It was a hard time" as his voice thickens.

"But the guys left back in Ambon, they had a very, very rough time."

Of the 528 prisoners left on Ambon, only 119 survived the harrowing experience.

Many Australian soldiers were stationed in Darwin during the war.

Sparrow Force, Gull Force, the 23rd Brigade, the second twelth Field Ambulance and more all saw action in places like Malaya, Timor, Papua New Guinea, North Africa, the Middle East and of course, Ambon.

This is just a little piece of a soldier's journey during that time. My Pop's.